Work From Home Sales & Support for USA Contact Point

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USA Contact Point is a company that used to be known as Profinity. They hire people in the US to work at home, handling sales and support calls for the customers of their many clients. There will be a lot to go over in the “feedback” section of this review because current and former workers have had both positive and very negative things to say about working here, but first we will go over the basics and then hopefully you can read through the feedback and decide for yourself if you should pass on this opportunity or give it a try.

This is definitely one of those jobs where there’s not a lot of waiting around to start working. No interview, no waiting for a background check to clear. When you’re done with their self-paced training, you can start working.

How much does USA Contact Point pay?

This is one of those phone jobs where you are paid per minute of talk time rather than hourly. The current rate per minute of talk time is .18 per minute. It’s important to remember than when you’re paid like this, it can be hard to figure out how much you’ll make each week because there is just no way to be sure what your call volume will look like. They have a ranking system set up so that if your rank is high and you are doing good with client retention, you’ll get more calls than people with lower rank. There is also potential for additional money through bonuses.

How often do they pay and through what method?

USA Contact Point pays weekly with direct deposit. This is one definite plus since I know a lot of you like getting paid weekly. I prefer weekly pay as well.

What does working for USA Contact Point involve?

As stated above, you’re handling sales and support calls for their clients. You won’t be using your own phone line because the calls come in through your computer through USA Contact Point’s software. You will need a completely quiet environment for each shift you work, so no background noise is allowed.

From the research I’ve done, you’re doing client retention. Many of the calls will come from people who signed up for a “free” credit score/credit monitoring service that they would be billed for if they didn’t cancel within about 7 days. Some of the people are calling to cancel before their time runs out and others have forgotten to cancel and were billed, so those people may be angry/frustrated when they call. There are also some people who didn’t read the fine print and never realized they would be charged when they signed up. Your job is to answer questions and also to try and keep these customers from canceling the service. You do have a quota to meet (convincing a certain number of people not to cancel the service).

I definitely don’t like being the caller in these situations. If I call and want to cancel something, I just want to cancel it without a ton of back and forth. It doesn’t take me long to get frustrated when the company keeps coming back with more rebuttals, trying to get me to keep a service when I’ve already made up my mind I don’t want it. It seems to me that you’d need pretty thick skin to do this type of work.

What experience is required?

It says on the website they prefer if you’ve had prior customer service or sales experience, but I don’t think not having it is a deal breaker. It looks like a lot of people just sign up, go through the training and certification, and then start working. You are also expected to be comfortable enough with computers to be able to navigate things like the Google Chrome browser, Skype, etc.

What tech equipment is required?

All you need is a computer with Windows 7 or better, high speed internet, and a USB head set with a microphone that you can plug into your computer for handling the calls. No land line is required, and you cannot use a Mac.

How is the schedule?

USA Contact Point offers a flexible schedule. They claim to have shifts available 24/7 and you can schedule yourself to work whenever you want. There is no minimum or maximum of hours so you’re free to work as little or as much as you need.

What does training involve?

You have to register on their website which involves filling out some very basic information and then take their self-guided e-training. Once you’re done with the training, you can get certified (free) and then you can start working the same day.

What is the feedback?

Cons –

USA Contact Point/Profinity has very high turnover. Workers are let go quickly and with no warning. There is no email sent saying you were let go, you simply attempt to log in and cannot do so. They may let you go for not meeting your quota and I’ve also read that you can get let go if you fail to sign up for a shift at least once every two weeks.

Apparently communication and support between call agents and managers is poor. It’s not always easy to get answers and help if you need it while you are working.

It isn’t stable income. Since you’re paid only for your talk time, your paycheck every week is completely dependent on your call volume. There are many people who claim they sat there for more than a few hours and made nothing or next to nothing. Understandably, most of these people choose to move on and not bother. Your rank is going to have a big impact on your call volume.

There are many people who don’t enjoy the nature of the work. Not only do you have to deal with people who may be feeling frustrated and angry, but you also might feel kind of bad about the nature of the calls. Some people may have signed up for the service without realizing they did so and end up getting billed. This can happen pretty easily to older people who aren’t very computer savvy, and in those situations it’s just so unfortunate and you may feel really bad trying to talk these people into keeping their service.

Pros –

As far as positives go, the company pays very reliably once a week.

It is flexible and that’s kind of hard to find with phone work from home. There aren’t too many companies that let you be more or less in control of your own hours.

It might be a pretty easy job to get if you’re just completely desperate for something you can do — even temporarily to make ends meet until you can find something else. Unlike many other call center jobs, there isn’t a lot of wait time and back and forth with paperwork, interviews, etc. Once you’ve completed your training and certification you can begin taking calls and earning money. There are some people who actually do enjoy the work and don’t find it too hard to meet their quota and keep their rank up.

Before you apply, I would recommend taking the time to read through the feedback on this company for yourself. I’ve found feedback at …

I know someone who did this and she quit after a week because she was cursed out by a customer. She told me that the customer stated that they did not sign up for the service and the charge caused an overdraft on their account. She stated that no matter how irate the customers are you have to do 3 rebuttals first, then you transfer the customer to someone else who actually cancels the service. That was new information to me because when I worked for Profinity years ago, we use to be able to submit a request to cancel the service. So apparently, you can’t anymore.

Also she said that calls are funnel based on certain metrics, so people who don’t do well on the calls get less calls. She stated that her first two days, she sat on the phone for 3 hours and rarely received any calls. The check that she did receive was on time, however based on the hours she worked versus her talk per minute rate, it was calculated less than her state’s minimum wage.

Like you stated, this is definitely a job for those that may need some cash really quick and/or is limbo with another job and need to make money.

I worked at USA and thought it was great, however, I no longer work there and honestly if I knew what I know now about this company, I would have never applied for this company. The purpose of the job is to try and retain customers from cancelling from a Credit report site. And from what I know, this company has been known NOT to cancel memberships. Which means that a month or two down, we had angry customers call back in wondering why they were not cancelled. There was a BBB report that had over 500 customer complaints about people. Also there have been some workers who basically lied to the customers in order to retain them, yet management did nothing. I also know of 5 people that were not paid at all (one of them worked for them for 3 months) and it has been 6 months since they quit and still no money. Ya’ll can try and work here, but please do it at your own risk and remember this is not the most reliable company. Because they also go by a rank system and if you are say rank 7, If you sign on for a 6 hour shift, you may not get one call, which basically means you will not be getting paid.

I went thru the training. Got hired. Have a log in yada yada…
I worked 6 hours and made 11 dollars… as a pay per call you dont make money unless you get calls.

So I started reading the workers forum. Over 3/4ths of the employees are complaining about not recieving any calls. Some have went 8 or 9 hours without getting a call. My experience was I would recieve 1 call an hour. My quality reviews were perfect (4 100’s and a 95) but my retention was not the best because the stuff you are “servicing” is a scam. –

The thing is if someone bothers to read the fine print then they know what they are getting. if they dont bother then it is on them. When you sign up for a free Trial you should know it is a limited time. That is what free trial means. So no dont think t is a scam.

This was a very good review – informative with a lot of “insider information” (impressive research from an “outsider”!
I’d like to share my very positive experience as an agent with USA Contact Point…
I joined USA Contact Point out of desperation about a month ago. I had a great hourly pay customer service job fall through and reluctantly went throught the company training, hoping I could make $40-50 a day while I searched for a “real” job…
My first week I made the standard 18cents per minute – I started late in the week, worked under 20 hours, got no bonus – but as “new hire” status I had calls coming in all day – I estimate I logged 45-50 minutes talk time per hour…They paid on time (direct deposit actually hit one day early). My second week was about the same – a few more hours worked than my first week and I got the same 18cents per minute and I was paid on time. The calls kept coming in steady, and I started my third week.
At the beginning of my third week (the week of the 4th of July) I had logged enough calls to be “ranked” (ranking now is either “tier 1″ or “tier 10″ – Tier 1 is the top 15% of agents based on retention rate…
Now, I didn’t do anything special to make Tier 1 – I simply followed procedure (strong rebuttals which was easy for me. You see, most callers are truely unaware of the rewards that they receive as a member. From roadside assistance to unlimited computer tech support, a free magazine subsription and the ability to earn a few dollars a day taking a few short surveys from our Survey Reward site (surveys pay 80 cents and you can do a few a day in less than 2 minutes). Often, customers choose to stay on just for the rewards – and when they choose to stay, you get a “save”, and your “save ratio” is what your are ranked on. Again, tier 1 agents are the top 15% – the rest are tier 10 or “new hires”…
Now, here I am, working the 4th of July holiday week but not really applying myself. I was happy I had made a nice part time income – averaging maybe $8/hr my first two weeks. I took a lot of time off that week and logged under 18 hours of talk time…
Ok, this will be another small check (I thought) – I estimated that I’d make about $200…
Then I noticed on my pay tracker a bonus they started paying me – a tier 1 performance bonus – during most hours of the day, I was earning a 7 to 10 cent per minute bonus. NICE! Now this raised my “hourly” rate by $4-5 – I figured with the new bonus I was getting at tier 1, I was making $11-12/hr and decided to buckle down my 4th week and earn a decent pay check
Then my third direct deposit hit my account. For less than 18 hours of talk time my weekly check was nearly $400! I was shocked – I mean, I had barely worked that week and was expecting about half that amount!!!
I had gotten what is called a “revenue forecast bonus” (or RFB). Revenue Forcast is based on how much money your are projected to make the company based on the amount of “saves” you get. The bonus is for tier 1 agents only and ranges from 10cents – 25cents per minute (my bonus was 15 cents per minute).
Ok – 18 cents per minute, base. Then as tier one performance added maybe 5 – 6 cents to that then my RFB added another 15 cents – so now instead of 18 cents per minute I’m eaning about 38 cents per minute (that’s over $20 per hour)…
Today is Sunday, the first day of the work week and I’m about to start taking calls for the day…This is now my ‘real’ job – I’m not actively seeking employment anymore.
Now, you may be thinking it must be hard to make it to tier 1 – Well, it’s not when you think about it. Remember, most employees aren’t taking this seriously. It’s “hard” for most agents to properly handle a call – they don’t attempt to save – they are just canceling accounts all day. So, if you simply follow the correct proceedure and properly do your rebuttals you will be ahead most all agents. And, like I said earlier, the retention offers are great – you can offer free months, deep discounts and other specials – I simply explain the Rewards to the customer (rewards are for all customers and include cash for surveys, unlimited tech support and roadside assistance) then I give the customer a free month so they can explore the site, take some surveys, order their magazine, etc and I save enough accounts to be ranked tier 1…It’s your retention skills that get you in the top 15%, and it takes a relatively thick skin I guess, so if you are willing to apply proper retention techniques, you should easily leap frog to the top of the calling class.
Hope my insider view was as fun to read as it was to write – I love this job! – Martin

Thank you, Martin. This was extremely insightful and I am very impressed with your success, especially considering that so many people seem to be having a hard time with this job. Maybe this will prove helpful to someone.

I have to agree with Martin. Due to web site issues, I haven’t been able to take calls, yet. But from the training materials, it should be obvious that you will be dealing with people who will be upset or itate, feel they’ve been ripped off or just do not have a clue.

They signed up to get their free credit report and didn’t do what they needed to do, within 7 days, to cancel and avoid further charges.

Many don’t check out the bonus features, so don’t see any value beyond getting something for free.

Most didn’t read the fine print.

And who, in this day and age expects anything to actually be “free”, without at least one string attached?

Sounds cold? You might see it that way, but the sample calls pesented during the training should tell you what you’re getting into. If you played Solitaire, instead of paying attention….

USA Contactpont is a business that sells services to other businesses. That means they want to make money. They do that by their employees keeping people on the program they signed up for. If they don’t retain customers, they won’t be working for MyScore.com (client company in the training materials) for long.

This is an outside retention and sales job, not inside sales. A person walks into Walmart, grabs a coat, tries it in, checks out the look in a mirror and buys it or not. This is a different world.

A company can pay you minimum wage for every hour you work, whether you answer any calls or not, or they can use the pay per minute of talk time method. Financially, which makes the most sense?

One of the sample calls was over 11 minutes long, and about a 3rd of it was after the save had been made, keeping the consumer engaged. Not usually considered good practice, but that rep still got paid to listen to a cunsumer that was no longer complaing, in fact was outright friendly.

Now, with that said, they do give you the tools needed. They don’t want you doing everything by script, because it is obvious to the consumer that is what’s happening. Ever called Dell, HP or another computer maker for support. Anyone who can read can do Tier 1 call center for them.

They do give you script for very specific parts of the interaction, due to legal requirements.

3 rebuttals? Gee, that’s hard. Especially considering the tools they give you. Three options to downsell. One with a lower price and the same service level and two with lower prices and less service level. As well as a free month offer to give people more time to look around and actually look at the programs offered.

Hell, I’m tempted to sign up, call to cancel and negotiate down to the lowest rate. The free roadside assistance is with that, alone! Add discount movie tickets, other discounted/free products and offerings and even at the highest price level, a consumer could save enough to make up for the highest undiscounted monthly rate.

But most of the people who sign up for the service, nor the people looking to make easy money working at home in their bathrobe, don’t bother to get to know the product offerings.

This is like any other job. If you don’t perform, you won’t be around long. If you want better pay and more calls do a better job.

Is this type of job for everyone? No. If you go to Myscore.com and actually check out what they’re offering, you can use that information to build value for the consumer. If you don’t know the product, you’re not going to do a good job of retention. You will, essentially be asking the consumer to keep paying for something they don’t see any value in. Yeah, that’s going to work.

I have begun the training, but I am curious why you cannot use a mac? I have been able to get the training done on my mac but its all I own….what kind of pc do I need to work?! I am anxious to start but obviously need to follow the rules! I have done customer service for twenty years, so I know I will rock this….but I want to follow protocol in order to maximize my earnings! Thanks. JB

I wanted to add, USA Contact Point offers an affiliate link to all retention agents. Share it with your friends, use it on ‘help wanted’ ads, etc and if you “hire” an agent using your affiliate link who makes it to tier 1, the referrer earns 25 cents for every call their tier 1 agent takes. I took over 200 calls last month working part time and this month should make well over 400 tier 1 calls – that’s a nice override! If it’s ok I’d like to include the link to my full review – http://martinmccauslin.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/usa-contact-point-customer-service-positions-available/

This is all good information as I have not started yet because I am learning everything that I can from everywhere that I can so that I will get calls all day for being good and make some $$$$$. It makes sense that if your not making the company any $$ and throwing it away. They probably wont send calls because they know your just gonna cancel everything. When most people will take a free month just to get something free especially when they only paid a dollar up front and wont have to pay nothing more for a while. Most people still want this but not for the full $24.95 or so cause they know they wont use it every month.

I would like to know if Rebecca is a current employee because it seems you’re defending this company against former employees who went through the experience. You get out what you put in it into one experience it would not be the same, not to mention, the professionalism of management putting the employees that’s not doing wha they suppose to do for the employees and customers and putting the employees in the frontline to deal with it. I wouldn’t want to work for a company like that…

I am having issues with the self pace certification. When I do the short application it goes to another window and I passed the first class. Im just stuck after that can I please get some advice. Thanks

So I went through with the training and got a headset and decided I would do this work from home thing. i have done telemarketing before so it wasn’t anything new to me. After I completed training with flying colors I went on to log in it to system portal with my info. After you log in it takes you to a screen were you answer some questions then fill out a W-9 form. After that it asks for your bank info for your direct deposit. I filled everything out the way it was supposed to and then…nothing. It takes you to a blank page that says you need to confirm your identity and click continue. Which I did so and nothing same page. So I did a live chat and the same person pops up everytime “Ty”. I tried talking to Ty to let him know what was going on and he said I have to make it through verification. Well there was no reason why I didn’t and I asked if there is a 1800 # that i could call or something or an email address. I needed to speak to someone about this. Especially since it was right after I put my bank info. I feel like this whole thing is a scam. i am calling my bank as I type to flag my account for any automatic withdraws that aren’t normally there. And I am going to close that account and open a new one because of all this!

Pls keep me updated here. For what it’s worth, I haven’t read anything about USA Contact Point ripping anyone off. I HAVE read that the job isn’t what it’s cracked up to be (you can see that yourself looking at previous comments on this post). But I can’t recall anything about anyone being scammed. I would say chances are better that their system is buggy and that’s why you’re taken to a blank screen — not that you’re being scammed — but just to be safe it’s good you are taking the precautions with your bank!

I was doing the first part of the certification course and the tutorial screen went black. I could hear the information but I could not see the areas that were being"clicked".No one to assist in that?.